Converting big String back to Array - PHP

Question

[Check My EDIT for better Explanation]

I need some help with a very big string i have.

Its like this:

$big_string = "TinteiroID:1#TinteiroLABEL:HP CB335EE#TinteiroREF:CB335EE#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#FIMPROD#TinteiroID:4#TinteiroLABEL:HP 51633 M#TinteiroREF:51633 M#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:12#FIMPROD#";

It as no break lines, but it as white spaces.

If we take a good look this is, they are 2 strings like this:

$splited_string = "TinteiroID:1#TinteiroLABEL:HP CB335EE#TinteiroREF:CB335EE#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#FIMPROD#";

I think i need a preg_split to search in the $big_string for this:

TinteiroID:[only numbers]#TinteiroLABEL:[any character, except "#"]#TinteiroREF:[any character, except "#"]#TinteiroMARCA:[any character, except "#"]#TinteiroGENERO:[any character, except "#"]#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:[only numbers]#FIMPROD#

I have striped the $splited_string and inside the [ ] square brackets i quote which characters it can be there.

Instead of the [ ] square brackets it should be the RegExpression token for each type of characters that should be accepted. But i know little about this.

And then store each $splited_string in an array $array.

Can anybody give some clues how to accomplish this?

Thanks

EDIT:

I try to explain my logic.

I have this big string (with no break line):

TinteiroID:1#

TinteiroLABEL:HP CB335EE#

TinteiroREF:CB335EE#

TinteiroMARCA:HP#

TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#

TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#

FIMPROD#

TinteiroID:4#

TinteiroLABEL:HP 51633 M#

TinteiroREF:51633 M#

TinteiroMARCA:HP#

TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#

TinteiroQUANTIDADE:12#

FIMPROD#

They can be split into 2 smaller string.

With the preg-split i wanted to assign each splited string that look alike these ones, but with different values:

TinteiroID:[only numbers]#

TinteiroLABEL:[any character, except "#"]#

TinteiroREF:[any character, except "#"]#

TinteiroMARCA:[any character, except "#"]#

TinteiroGENERO:[any character, except "#"]#

TinteiroQUANTIDADE:[only numbers]#

FIMPROD#

Then add each splited string to an array:

Array
(
    [0] => TinteiroID:1#TinteiroLABEL:HP CB335EE#TinteiroREF:CB335EE#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#FIMPROD#
    [1] => TinteiroID:4#TinteiroLABEL:HP 51633 M#TinteiroREF:51633 M#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:12#FIMPROD#
)

And then there will a for each loop to go into every object in the array. [0] [1] ...

Do another RegExpression to collect the values and do something with those values.

Yes its "messy" and takes much CPU but.. I don't have a better ideia :S

EDIT:

Following the Advice:

I've did this code:

$big_string = "TinteiroID:1#TinteiroLABEL:HP CB335EE#TinteiroREF:CB335EE#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#FIMPROD#TinteiroID:4#TinteiroLABEL:HP 51633 M#TinteiroREF:51633 M#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:12#FIMPROD#";CB335EE#TinteiroREF:CB335EE#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#FIMPROD#";
$array = explode("FIMPROD#", $big_string);

print_r ($array);

It splits the big_string to the at the end of each "FIMPROD#" the Delimiter for each one.

Now i have go on the array, and for each value in it. Do something with it.

I will try that now... I will post something case i managed to do it or not.

It looks good to me. See, the simplest approach is often the best. — pavium, Oct 03 '09 at 15:00

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 03 '09 at 13:50

1

This should do then:

"~TinteiroID:(\d+)#TinteiroLABEL:([^#]+)#TinteiroREF:([^#]+)#TinteiroMARCA:([^#]+)#TinteiroGENERO:([^#]+)#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:(\d+)#FIMPROD#~i"

answered Oct 03 '09 at 13:50

thr

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pavium · Answer 2 · 2009-10-03T14:36:15.053

The difficulty of using preg_split() is that you seem to require the string to be split by TWO different expressions: \d+ and [^#]+

I think you should consider splitting the string into smaller pieces and then putting some back together again.

Trying to do the split with one preg_split() will lead to greater complications.

It's also difficult to see the full strings in your question because they have to be scrolled left and right.

Edit: Yes, as Silent Ghost more or less said, you're not splitting on a regular expression with [^#]+, you actually need to split, or better still explode at the # characters.

Then you can put the array back together as two or more smaller strings, perhaps by checking for 'TinteiroID' as the first element of each of the strings.

SilentGhost · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-03T14:59:52.447

1

why do you need regex here? why don't you just split it twice?

$num = 6;            # number of elements to in each splited_string
$out = array();
foreach ($explode('#', $big_string) as $str) {
    $tmp = explode(':', $str, 2);
    if (count($tmp) == 2) {
        $out[] = $tmp[1];
    }
}
$subs = intval(count($out) / $num);  # how many splited_strings in the big string
for ($i=0; $i<$sub; $i+$num) {
    $each_id = array_slice($out, $i, $i+$num);  # contains six strings
}

here at each iteration, $each_id would contain six strings, you'd still need to convert first and last elements to integers.

edited Oct 03 '09 at 14:59

answered Oct 03 '09 at 14:14

SilentGhost

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Because this time there are 2, similar string, but in other cases it might 4, 5, ... so on. – Fábio Antunes Oct 03 '09 at 14:30
so, what? can't you count the number of items parsed? – SilentGhost Oct 03 '09 at 14:34
I also managed to do it in another, more simple. And it only returns the value. Example in "TinteiroID:3" it only returns 3.. It as Based on your first code. My thanks. – Fábio Antunes Oct 03 '09 at 16:39

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 05 '09 at 06:21

Try the code below.

 <?php
    $str = "TinteiroID:1#TinteiroLABEL:HP CB335EE#TinteiroREF:CB335EE#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#FIMPROD#TinteiroID:4#TinteiroLABEL:HP 51633 M#TinteiroREF:51633 M#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:12#FIMPROD#";
    preg_match_all("/([A-Za-z]+)\:([^#]+)/", $str, $matches);
    print_r($matches);
    ?>

You only need one regular expression /([A-Za-z]+)\:([^#]+)/ with preg_match_all function to convert the string into an array. But not sure if it is what you need.

The online PHP regular expression tester will do your help.

Pretty Good indeed. With this it would be 2 accepted answers. — Fábio Antunes, Oct 05 '09 at 11:35

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 03 '09 at 14:01

I do i get 3 results from the preg_split., while there should be 2?

And with no values?

<?php
$big_string = "TinteiroID:1#TinteiroLABEL:HP CB335EE#TinteiroREF:CB335EE#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:23#FIMPROD#TinteiroID:4#TinteiroLABEL:HP 51633 M#TinteiroREF:51633 M#TinteiroMARCA:HP#TinteiroGENERO:Tinteiro Preto Reciclado#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:12#FIMPROD#";
$array = preg_split("~TinteiroID:(\d+)#TinteiroLABEL:([^#]+)#TinteiroREF:([^#]+)#TinteiroMARCA:([^#]+)#TinteiroGENERO:([^#]+)#TinteiroQUANTIDADE:(\d+)#FIMPROD#~i", $big_string);
print_r ($array);
?>

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => 
    [1] => 
    [2] => 
)

Use preg_match_all instead of preg_split. – Lukáš Lalinský Oct 03 '09 at 14:17 — Lukáš Lalinský, Oct 03 '09 at 14:17

Converting big String back to Array - PHP

5 Answers5